We’re 10! (and a #giveaway)

by Barb, somewhere on the drive home from Malice Domestic

And there’s a giveaway! To celebrate our tenth anniversary, we’ll be doing a giveaway to a lucky commenter almost every day this month, with a super-big giveaway at the end of the month. Today is my day to give away. There’s more info at the end of the blog.

Yes, the Wicked Authors Blog is ten years old today! Our first post, Wicked Wednesday–How Did We Meet? was published on this date in 2013.

The idea was Sherry’s. I can’t figure out where or how it came up. I was convinced it was at our annual retreat, but I looked it up and the retreat wasn’t until June that year. However it happened, I do remember it was March and when I heard the idea and I thought, “Why not?” But then someone said, “Can we do it by May?” (I don’t remember who it was, but it wasn’t cautious, conservative me.) Liz and Edith both had first in series books coming out in May, 2013, Kneading to Die on May 7, and A Tine to Live, A Tine to Die, on May 28, respectively and we wanted to launch in time to celebrate them.

And we did it.

Wickeds by the Numbers

At the time we launched, we had three books published among us: Edith’s Speaking of Murder, Jessie’s Live Free or Die, and my The Death of an Ambitious Woman, all published by small presses. (Though some are available now from other sources.)

To date, we have traditionally-published 93 books, with 10 more available for pre-order on the various retail sites, including Jessie/Jessica’s Murder on the Home Front, which releases tomorrow. (And several other manuscripts completed and turned in but not yet available for pre-order.)

When we began, we had seven names: Jessie Crockett, Sherry Harris, Julie Hennrikus, Edith Maxwell, Liz Mugavero, and Barbara Ross. Edith was already Tace Baker as well, due to the publication of Speaking of Murder.

Now we’ve had thirteen names: Jessie Crockett/Jessica Estevao/Jessica Ellicott, Sherry Harris, J. A. Hennrikus/Julianne Holmes/Julia Henry, Edith Maxwell/Maddie Day (Tace Baker is on semi-permanent sabbatical), Liz Mugavero/Cate Conte, and Barbara Ross. I can’t tell whether Sherry and me having only one name represents a stroke of luck, or a lack of ambition. A little of both, I think.

Despite all the names, we’ve had a remarkable, and I think unusual, stability in the group over time.

For a while, we had three Wicked Accomplices, people who posted on a monthly basis, but who weren’t involved in the running of the blog. They were Kim Gray (The Detective’s Daughter), Jane Haertel, and the late Sheila Connolly. They are no longer with the blog, but are not forgotten.

We began as the Wicked Cozy Authors, claiming the occasionally pejorative (at least in those days) “cozy” as our own. We changed our name in 2018 to embrace the full range of what we were writing by then: cozies still, but also historical, paranormal, and traditional mysteries.

The number of views of that first post has scrolled off into the maw of WordPress statistical history, but we do know that first month of our existence we had 1500.

To date we’ve racked up

• 785,000 views
• 300,000 visitors
• 2,700 posts
• 87,500 comments

Our all-time top posts by views are

• Maps in Books
• Missing Sheila Connolly
• A Visit to the Biltmore Estate
• Balance
• Ask the Expert — Marc Cameron, Chief Deputy US Marshal (Retired)
• Audiobooks: How Are They Made and What Makes Them Good? An Expert Tells Us

Thank you!

Doing any of this wouldn’t make sense if it weren’t for you, dear readers. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Whether you’re a regular commenter, or a quiet lurker, or anything in between, we embrace you and we adore you.

We’ll be celebrating all month with lots of giveaways and other opportunities!

To celebrate this momentous occasion, I’m giving away two books. Comment below to win a hardcover copy of the collection Irish Coffee Murder with novellas by Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis, and me, and an Advance Reader Copy of Hidden Beneath, the eleventh Maine Clambake Mystery, coming on June 27.

PS–Friend of the Wickeds and frequent commenter Liz Milliron has some Very Important Meetings this week. We are sending her our very best wishes! Please send your best her way.

Readers: Why do you read the blog? What brings you here? Do you have a particular post that you remember?